Newtown groups once again lobby Congress on guns

Charles J. Lewis

Updated 6:43 pm, Wednesday, June 12, 2013

WASHINGTON -- Two citizen groups from Newtown are converging on Congress six months after the Sandy Hook school massacre to remind lawmakers of what they say is the painful unfinished business of dealing with gun violence.

Members of the organizations -- the Newtown Action Alliance and Sandy Hook Promise -- said they will ask lawmakers to require broader background checks on all commercial gun purchasers. Present federal law mandates such checks only when the gun buyer is obtaining the firearm from a federally licensed gun dealer.

As they meet with individual senators and House members Wednesday and Thursday, the citizen lobbyists will remind them of the Dec. 14 mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School that left 20 children and six adults dead.

Nicole Hockley, mother of shooting victim Dylan, 6, said the Sandy Hook Promise group is also lobbying for federal laws that would improve access to mental health programs.

Hockley, who has an extensive background in marketing, is communications director for the Sandy Hook Promise group. She said the group would continue its policy of no-fanfare advocacy and low-key visits to individual lawmakers and staffers.

By contrast, the Newtown Action Alliance plans a higher profile, including a news conference with congressional leaders and gun-control groups and a "human ribbon of remembrance'' on the Capitol grounds on Thursday. The group says this would be a "powerful visual symbol of our solidarity'' and that a moment of silence would honor not only the 26 victims of the Dec. 14 shootings but "the more than 4,500 victims lost to gun violence since that horrific day, and all lives needlessly lost to gun violence before Sandy Hook.''

Debbi Morello, an alliance member, said the group will leave for Washington early Wednesday on a bus provided by the Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a national group co-founded by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino.

The Newtown groups are converging on Congress at a time when gun control has receded among congressional priorities following the April defeat of a bipartisan background check measure crafted by Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Pat Toomey, R-Pa. The bill won support from 54 of the 100 senators, but Senate rules required 60 "aye'' votes for the bill to pass.

On the same day, the Senate also rejected other gun-control measures.

Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, both Democrats from Connecticut, have been the main vote counters and parliamentary managers of gun legislation this year and continue to seek support from their colleagues on a background check measure.

Murphy said the conversations are focused on a handful of senators who voted "no'' back in April who might reconsider an amended form of the Manchin-Toomey measure.

In the House, Rep. Elizabeth Esty, D-Cheshire, whose district includes Newtown, introduced legislation that would provide incentives to defense contractors to donate for a new Sandy Hook Elementary School that would replace the current structure.

The Sandy Hook gunman, Adam Lanza, 20, stole guns from his mother, Nancy, fatally shot her and then drove to Sandy Hook Elementary where he fired more than 150 rounds from a semiautomatic rifle in 10 minutes before committing suicide with a handgun as first responders arrived on the scene.

Nancy Lanza had purchased the firearms legally, a point that Hockley said shouldn't thwart tougher federal laws on background checks.

"Just because a broader background check law might not have prevented the Sandy Hook shootings doesn't mean that it shouldn't become law to help other families from going through the same grief we have,'' she said in an interview.